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Questionnaires and clinical observations are significant components of human and veterinary epidemiology surveys, providing a comprehensive prognosis of the occurrence and prevalence of diseases. The information compiled by these two survey methods is equally important for establishing an epidemiological surveillance system for disease outbreak management. This review summarizes 57 previous surveys, including questionnaires and clinical observations on sheep myiasis globally from 1976 to 2023, with an emphasis on their methodologies and areas of findings. Overall, this review establishes a baseline understanding of the essential entomological and veterinary aspects required for designing questionnaires and clinical observation surveys on sheep myiasis. Additionally, it provides guidance for implementing future study protocols and proposes a farmer-based approach that integrates these techniques to achieve improved outcomes in mitigating sheep myiasis., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Determining the minimum postmortem interval (minPMI) from an entomological perspective relies mainly on development data recorded for various species of flies collected from a crime scene or suspicious death. This study focused on the larval and pupal development of Lucilia sericata (Meigen), with an emphasis on the changes of the external morphology of the puparium and its pupal content throughout the duration of metamorphosis. Colonies of L. sericata were reared on 3 types of swine tissue (skeletal muscle, liver tissue, and heart tissue) at 2 different temperature regimes; 24 ± 1 °C and 30 ± 1 °C. The overall developmental time, larval width and length, and inner and outer pupal morphology changes were observed and recorded. The results show that: (i) temperature significantly influenced overall development time, as well as changes in larval width and length, but this effect was not dependent on tissue type; (ii) larval development duration was longest on heart tissue, and shortest on skeletal muscle for both temperatures; and (iii) pupation was longest for larvae reared on skeletal muscle at 24 ± 1 °C, and on liver tissue at 30 ± 1 °C, while those larvae reared on liver tissue at 24 ± 1 °C and heart tissue at 30 ± 1 °C had the shortest pupation period. A seven-character checklist plus 4 landmark stages were developed comprising the external morphology of the puparium and pupal content changes of L. sericata. In conclusion, the study provides larval and pupal development timetables, as well as checklists and photo guides for pupal character development that may be useful for future postmortem determinations., (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Entomological Society of America. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site—for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.)